President Bush has an agenda for creating more jobs for America's
workers and ensuring that workers have the training and education they
need to compete for the best-paying, highest-growth jobs. Today, he
traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina to announce a new initiative to
provide America's workers with better training for better jobs.

America's growing economy is a changing economy, and some workers
need new skills to succeed. Today's economy is an innovation economy.
Two-thirds of America's economic growth in the 1990s resulted from the
introduction of new technologies - and 60% of the new jobs of the 21st
century require post-secondary education held by only one-third of
America's workforce. We need to close the skills gap in America. Not
enough workers are being trained quickly enough to take advantage of
many of the new jobs that are being created. The Federal government
provides state and local governments over $4 billion through the
Workforce Investment Act (WIA), but only 206,000 adults were trained
through these programs last year.

President Bush proposed significant reforms to Federal worker
training programs to double the number of workers receiving job
training, to ensure those programs work better for America's workers,
and to close the skills gap so we fill every high growth job with a
well-trained American worker. The President proposed:

Providing $4 billion in Federal job training funds to the nation's
Governors with less federal red tape and more flexibility;

Putting strict limits on overhead in major Federal job training
programs by closing loopholes and enforcing limits to ensure tax
dollars support training for workers who need it - reducing overhead
costs by an additional $300 million; and

Giving workers more choices about their job training by increasing
the use of personal job training accounts called Innovation Training
Accounts (ITAs); and

Training an additional 200,000 people for high-growth jobs through
programs run by community colleges, unions, and businesses.

Background: Making Federal Job Training Work Better for America's
Workers

The Problem: Currently, the Federal government spends almost $23
billion for more than 30 programs spread across 9 departments and
agencies. The result is a confusing hodgepodge of programs, some of
which have remained fundamentally unchanged for decades, and
administrative costs that prevent too many dollars from getting to the
workers who need training the most.

Bureaucracy: Although many good people work in the job training
system, the programs in place to train workers are overlapping and
sometimes ineffective. Too often, red tape and administrative costs
eat up job training money before it even gets to workers. For example,
the Department of Labor found that several local areas had no one
participating in training. Too much of the funds went to
administrative costs-not training workers. President Bush believes
that every dollar spent on unnecessary bureaucracy is a dollar taken
out of the pocket of a worker who needs job training.

Complexity: Job training programs are set up with so many rules
that many workers, potential employers, and local community colleges do
not participate. For example, 30 states have been granted temporary
relief from these requirements so they don't lose their link with
community colleges. However, there are limits to what we can do under
the current Federal law. President Bush recognizes that the best
training is not filling out forms - it is learning on the job or at a
community college.

Limited Accountability: Currently, there is no clear standard or
benchmark to measure the effectiveness of federal job training
programs. Federal grants to states for job training have 17
measurements of accountability. President Bush proposes to refocus
these programs on the end results that matter most to America's workers
-- Did you get a job? How long did you keep it? And how much are you
being paid?

Failure to teach skills in demand: Many job training programs do
not address the skills that are most in demand by employers in the
worker's community. Instead, workers are churned through the system
without developing the skills they need for success over the long
term. President Bush believes we should be training workers for jobs
in sectors of the economy that are most likely to grow.

The President's Solution:

Less Red Tape and More Help for Workers: The President's goal is
to double the number of workers receiving job training by maximizing
the available Federal dollars going to workers and eliminating
unnecessary overhead costs by an additional $300 million. The
President's plan establishes a clear goal that the vast majority of job
training dollars should go to the workers who need them - rather than
to bureaucratic overhead. Currently, administrative expenses are
capped at 15%, but regulatory loopholes allow too many of our training
dollars to be spent on bureaucracy and other non-training services. As
part of reducing red tape, the President's plan consolidates 4 major
training and employment grant programs totaling $4 billion into a
single grant to Governors, eliminating unnecessary overhead costs and
making Federal support more effective and efficient.

Increased Innovation Training Accounts (ITAs): The President
proposes to increase the use of Innovation Training Accounts to provide
workers with more flexible and responsive assistance. Workers would
have more job training choices - they would be able to use community
colleges, private-sector training providers, local businesses, or
community organizations - to get the help they need in the most
effective and efficient way possible. These ITAs would allow workers
considerable flexibility to tailor training programs to meet their
needs.

More Accountability: Under the President's plan, Governors would
be given more flexibility to design their own workforce training
programs. But they would also be required to set clear goals and
outcomes focused on the number of workers placed in jobs, the duration
of the job placement, and the earnings of the job. The President
proposes consolidating the number of state performance goals of the
Federal job training system from 17 to 3. Under the new goals,
accountability will be determined by asking these questions: How many
people are finding work? How much are workers earning in their new
jobs? How long are they staying in these jobs?

Jobs for the 21st Century Initiative: The President's Jobs for the
21st Century Initiative, announced in the State of the Union Address,
includes a $250 million proposal to help America's community colleges
train 100,000 additional workers for the industries that are creating
the most new jobs. This expands the Department of Labor's successful
High Growth Job Training Initiative, launched under President Bush in
2001, which has provided $71 million in 38 partnerships nationwide
between community colleges, public workforce agencies, and employers.
These initiatives help community colleges produce graduates with the
skills most in demand by local employers.

Personal Reemployment Accounts: The President has also proposed
$50 million for a pilot program of accounts of up to $3,000 for those
unemployed workers who have the most difficulty finding jobs to use
toward job training, transportation, childcare, or other assistance in
obtaining a new job. Workers who found a job quickly would be able to
keep the balance of the account as a reemployment bonus.